


i feel the weight of the world sink in

by shinelikestars



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, reflection on evan's impact, reflection on zoe and connor's relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 06:04:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11351394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinelikestars/pseuds/shinelikestars
Summary: zoe murphy thought evan hansen cared about her. she thought her brother loved her, admired her, even.now she knows that was all a lie.(aka the one where zoe reflects on her emotions after evan confesses to lying)





	i feel the weight of the world sink in

**Author's Note:**

> hi, everyone! this is just a little drabble talking about zoe's emotions and how she chooses to deal with them after evan confesses to the murphys that everything's he's been telling them for the past few months has been a lie.
> 
> title taken from "a part of me", a cut song from dear evan hansen. i'd really recommend checking it out -- i think it's a great song and i love zoe's part in it, i believe it highlights really well what evan's lies did for her before she knew they weren't real.
> 
> thank you for reading! comments are appreciated and adored as always.
> 
> xo,  
> L

Zoe has always been good at keeping her feelings bottled up, shoving them deep down where no one can reach them, locking them away in that imaginary chest inside her head and throwing out the key.

 

It’s what’s expected of her. Because _someone’s_ got to be the sane child, right? When one Murphy sibling is already letting his feelings explode all over the place, God knows their family doesn’t need a second one of them doing that. And Zoe’s always been okay with that. Being the “sane” kid. Sitting quiet and pretty in the corner, flinching at every loud noise but never saying a word, pretending that everything was fine when that couldn’t be further from the truth, smiling and turning on the radio on the drive to the hospital or the rehab center or wherever he was locked away that month.

 

Except now her brother — _no_ , that’s a sentimental word, brings up too many bad feelings, can’t use that. Now _Connor_ is gone, and Zoe doesn’t think she can do this much longer. It’s as if her emotions are acid, eating away at her from the inside-out, and sooner or later they’re going to show themselves. Sooner or later, like the Murphy child she is, she’s going to explode.

 

When she had Evan, she was okay. He gave her new feelings to focus on, feelings so strong that they almost overrode the bad ones that Connor left behind. She wore flouncy tops and bright, printed dresses and grinned and grinned and grinned, never let that smile leave her face once they went public with their relationship. Because, she told herself, if she just smiled the pain away, sooner or later, it wouldn’t be there anymore. And then all she’d have was Evan, and he’d be nothing but _good_ , and Connor wouldn’t be haunting her dreams, hanging out in her peripheral vision all the time, not anymore.

 

It would only be her and Evan, only the two of them, and she would be alright. She’d get through junior year, spend a summer making amazing memories with the boy she, dare she say it, loved, and speed through senior year until graduation. And then she’d be out of here. And she’d never come back. Never subject herself to another ghost of the past again.

 

But all of those dreams were a lie, because, as it turns out, Evan Hansen is a liar. He was never friends with Con — _fuck it_ , he was never friends with her _brother_. They never went to the Autumn Smiles Orchard, never got ice cream at À La Mode, never even texted each other. Certainly never e-mailed in secret. 

 

And now her parents are a mess, and Zoe’s trying to figure out how not to be a mess, and Connor’s “suicide note” is posted all over the Internet, courtesy of Alana Beck. As if this day hadn’t been horrendous enough already. Now she’s getting hate mail, on top of everything else. She might actually have to delete her Facebook account.

 

Right on cue, her laptop _ding_ s with a new notification. Zoe can’t tell if she’s numb or overwhelmed as her shaking hands click on the message.

 

_fuck u bitch. u and ur parents r why connor is dead. ur brother loved u and u treated him like shit_

 

It’s practically a carbon copy of the 5,000 other messages Zoe’s received today from the dregs of the Internet, so she doesn’t know why this is the one that makes her vision suddenly blur with tears as she hastily slams her laptop shut. Somewhere downstairs, the front door slams, and Zoe’s distantly aware of the sound of a car peeling out of their driveway. Probably her dad, off to go buy a bottle of overpriced whiskey to drown his sorrows in — which means she’s home alone now. Her mom, tear-stained cheeks and all, still managed to make it to yoga class this afternoon.

 

Zoe doesn’t hesitate to crack open her laptop again, fingers flying across the keyboard to enter her password and pull up the application she needs as a new idea forms in her head. It’s probably crazy, but — maybe it’ll let the feelings out in a productive way. That’d certainly be a rarity for a Murphy.

 

She finds herself staring at her own mirror image, her webcam blinking green as it powers on. She doesn’t look too bad, considering, y’know, the total shit-show her life has become. She self-consciously smooths at her hair and blouse, takes a deep breath to steady herself, and hits “Record”.

 

“Um, hi. For those of you who don’t know me — which is most of you, I guess — I’m Zoe Murphy, Connor Murphy’s younger sister,” she begins, blinking away the tears that form in the corners of her eyes at the mention of Connor. “I’m sure you’re aware already, but yesterday, someone posted a copy of Connor’s suicide note online.” Her stream of words halts as she attempts to make a quick decision, something she’s never been particularly good at — should she expose Evan’s lying nature to the world, or let him do that all on his own?

 

Probably best not to say anything and risk further villainizing herself. The Internet loves Evan, and somehow, they’d find a way to turn Zoe’s truth into a vicious attack on an innocent boy. She settles on keeping quiet about it.

 

“Ever since the note went viral, my family and I have been getting nonstop hate,” Zoe continues, some of the nastier messages popping into her brain and making her cringe. “And I just — well, I’m making this today to ask you to _please_ stop.” Her voice cracks, and Zoe mentally scolds herself for the slip-up. _C’mon. Don’t be silly and expose yourself like that. Turn off the camera, delete the video and just —_

 

No. She has to do this. If not for herself, then for her parents. And suddenly, it’s like she can’t stop the words pouring from her mouth.

 

“I also just think that you all should know something. That note wasn’t Connor’s,” she blurts out, heart pounding. “It was a letter that Evan wrote to himself for a therapy assignment. All of this, The Connor Project, the _speech_ — it was a lie, okay? A _lie_. Evan lied to us all, and _he’s_ the one you should be mad at, not me or my parents. Trust me, what Evan’s done has been punishment enough. He _manipulated_ our family. He, he made me think — ”

 

Zoe pauses, a sad smile forming on her features as a memory of her and her brother, playing at the orchard, flashes before her eyes. “I guess I’m mad, too,” she says softly, no longer looking at the camera. She’s started to play with a tassel on her shirt without even realizing it. “So it might be kind of hypocritical for me to tell you guys to not be mad. But what Evan did was _wrong_. As stupid as it sounds, he actually had me thinking that maybe, in some way, my brother was making up for everything he’d done, all the times he’d screamed at me and tried to kick down my door, by sending me him. By sending me Evan.”

 

Her cheeks are wet, but Zoe can’t find it in herself to care, too caught up in the emotions that are spilling out in her words. “I sound like a fucking idiot, right? But it’s true. Evan lied to me, and so I thought that, somewhere out there, Connor was looking out for me still. I thought that he’d sent me Evan to be, um, my guardian angel or whatever. So I could have someone when everybody else was focusing on Connor.” She laughs bitterly, in a hollow kind of way she only ever heard from her brother before. It’s a little uncanny, how familiar it sounds.

 

“And now I just feel… dumb. And used. And awful, honestly. How am I ever going to trust anyone again?” Sh glances down at her hands, wonders if they’ll ever stop trembling. “Connor and I hadn’t been on good terms in years, and he always acted like he hated me, but Evan made me believe that somewhere in there, he cared about me. And now I’ll never know if that was real. ’Cuz that’s the shitty thing about suicide — they leave, and when they leave, all the answers to all these questions go with them.”

 

Zoe wipes at her eyes, wishing she could will the tears away. “And the funny thing is,” she admits, “now I can’t decide if I would’ve rather lived with that false hope Evan gave me, or live with the truth.”

 

Her own words hit her like a knife to the chest, and she reaches over to turn off the webcam, pausing the recording. The video automatically saves to her desktop, and Zoe stares blankly at it for a couple seconds, contemplating.

 

She could post it to YouTube, share it on Facebook. She could tell everyone _everything_. The meaner part of her wants her to, urges her fingers towards the trackpad, screams at her to give Evan what’s coming to him, to get justice for her parents and Connor and herself and everyone in between.

 

But that’s what they want, right? That’ll get her splashed across the front page of BuzzFeed, trending in The Connor Project’s Tumblr tag, viral on Twitter. It’ll get her famous, and maybe hated, but it’s not like the hate can get any worse.

 

Zoe’s better than that, though. She might not know what the truth is, might not ever know how Connor really felt about her or if he was thinking of her the day he decided to end it all, but — 

 

Is she any better than him if she does this?

 

She deletes the video.

 

Time to lock the feelings away again.

 


End file.
